Joker's Little Party
by paganpunk2
Summary: Joker invites all of Gotham to dance...or burn. Unbeknownst to him, one of his usual adversaries has already flipped from the frying pan into the fire. M for language, disturbing/death imagery, and near-death scenarios. Inspired by Fergie's 'A Little Party Never Killed Nobody.'
1. Chapter 1

**__Author's Note: This story idea came to me while I was listening to the soundtrack for 'The Great Gatsby,' specifically to Fergie's 'A Little Party Never Killed Nobody.' If you haven't heard that song, I highly recommend giving it a listen before, during, or after reading the first chapter (or all three; it's a good song). This will probably be a four- or five-shot when all is said and done. I will post the next chapter next Tuesday at the very latest, since I've still got Firework to wrap up. Happy reading!**

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_ …Joker, you son of a bitch,_ Batman cursed as he ripped the wheel of the Batmobile around. The car slid around in a half-circle before coming to a stop, and the vigilante exited so quickly that onlookers would later swear he simply materialized halfway between the vehicle and the burning nightclub.

"Batman," Red Robin called through the earbud radio receiver sewn into the cowl's lining.

"Report."

"I just got here. The north side is completely engulfed. The firefighters are backing off and focusing on keeping the fire off of nearby structures."

_Goddamn it. How many are left inside?_ he mused as he strode through a bevy of frantic paramedics, heading for the nearest entrance that wasn't wreathed in flames. _A Friday night in summer? That place must have been at capacity, if not over. Dozens dead already at least, surely, and that prick is probably sitting somewhere laughing his ass off…_

"Have you seen Nightwing?" a query came. "I mean, he called it in to us both, so.._._"

"He's probably inside already. You know him."

"…Right."

A note of discomfort had edged that single word, and the cowled man commiserated. First Jason, then Damian…they couldn't lose anyone else. They wouldn't be able to hold if they did, and that went double if it was Dick who was next in line for the reaper. His mouth tightened as he shook off old pains, knowing they would come back later – they hadn't yet failed to, after all – but needing to be free of them to deal with the ongoing cataclysm. "Circle around to my location if your area looks impassable," he ordered his youngest remaining son. _Don't risk it,_ hung unspoken between them. _I don't want anything to happen to you, either._

"Be there in a second."

Batman had just kicked the door in when a soot-coated figure with a body over one shoulder emerged from it. _There you are._ The creeping worry that had been coiled in the pit of his stomach receded somewhat as he moved to allow the other man to retreat from the worst of the heat. _Good, you had the sense to strap on a rebreather_. "Report."

"It's total hell in there," was panted back as the breathing apparatus was stripped off in favor of nominally fresher air. "Thanks for getting the door, by the way. Since you're such a gentleman," he ribbed hoarsely, "take this lady, would you? I have to go back."

"I'll go." _You look like you need a break._

"I already know what's collapsed and what's not. You don't. You get turned around in there and you're screwed, you know? Take her, we can work faster this way." With that he all but chucked the unconscious victim at his former mentor, drew a deep breath, and vanished back into the eerily backlit interior, straightening his oxygen recycler as he went.

"Damn it, Nightwing," Batman growled quietly as he carried the load he'd been tasked with back towards the ambulance cordon a block away. He had just spun on his heel to sweep back into the fray when the sound of a helicopter grew close overhead. _That must be the fire department bringing in retardant dumps. If any of this smoke would clear I'd know for sure, but I can't imagine why else someone would hover over this inferno…_

His answer came in the form of an ecstatic announcement that lent a somehow even more surreal feel to the thick clouds of fog reflecting the emergency lights at incomprehensible angles. "Gotham!" a psychopathic giggle broke in amongst the sirens and the crackle of the ever-weakening building. "You get too straight-laced when I'm off in my island paradise. You forget how to have _fun_. I'm sick of having to reteach you every fucking time I come home. So I'm throwing the – hehehe – _hottest _party of the year, right here, right now, so you remember why you love me."

_Christ. You __would__ choose to revel in this up close, wouldn't you?_ Someone shrieked from a nearby gurney as their burns were exposed, drawing the vigilante's attention as his thought trailed off. Not even his usually jaded stomach could stand the sight of flesh stripping away along with chunks of melted gloop that had been synthetic fabrics a mere half hour earlier, and he had to look away. _…You're not getting away tonight, goddamn it. _"Base," he radioed back to the cave. He'd called in after being informed of the blaze in order to ask Alfred to remain available to provide support services, and as usual in such situations the Englishman didn't let him down.

"Sir?" came back immediately.

"Send me the plane."

"On its way now."

_I'll help the boys until it gets here, and then I'm chasing that bastard down,_ he ruled as he braved the skin-crinkling heat that was pouring off of the shell of one of the city's most celebrated drink-and-dance venues. _So long as they have each other's backs, they'll be fine._

"Batman!" a familiar voice hailed him from nearby.

"…Where's your brother?" he stopped as he recognized Red Robin, who was hunched over under the weight of not one, but two fresh victims.

"He…ugh, thanks," he gasped as the other man took half of his load, "he went back in. I tried to get him to switch out, but-"

"But he said he knew where he was going, and that you'd get turned around."

"Yeah."

"…Let's go," he shook his head and turned away from his objective once more. _If nothing else, he'll have to carry his next one away on his own. We won't be back in time for him to just chuck them at us. Maybe we can snag him before he goes for another one…_

They'd taken only a few steps when a new broadcast was blasted over the groans of the beleaguered structure behind them. "Why is nobody _dancing_!? You're all just scurrying around down there like you don't know what you're doing! Have you all forgotten that you're supposed to _dance_ at a party?! Or is the snapping of a good old-fashioned bonfire too pagan for your urbane sensibilities, Gotham? Well…" A snicker sounded. "…I did bring _one_ other thing. Maybe it will help you remember that there's no crime in having fun. Do you know what else there's nothing wrong with? Enjoying a fine meal. Mmm…" The taking of a deep, snuffling breath could be heard. "…Suckling pig. Is anyone else hungry? Doesn't it smell like suckling pig? _Doesn't it?!_ Answer me with your feet, Gotham! Dance, or I'm done, and do you know what I do to things I'm done with? _I burn them to the motherfucking bedrock!"_

As his squealing inquiry died away, a horn took its place, rising to join a swinging melody with lyrics so grossly inappropriate to the situation that even Batman was momentarily awed at the brazenness of the choice.

_I ain't got time for you baby;  
either you're mine, or you're not.  
Make up your mind sweet baby;  
right here, right now's all we got.  
A little party never killed nobody,  
so we gon' dance until we drop.  
A little party never killed nobody,  
right here, right now's all we got…_

"…Oh, Fergie's going to be _pissed_," Red Robin commented dully. "Sorry," he tacked on a moment later, his embarrassed blush invisible under the color that the high ambient air temperature had already brought to his cheeks. "It just…popped in there."

"Ignore the music," Batman commanded as they delivered their loads to the disastrous triage zone and prepared to dash back. "We need to focus on clearing out the club."

"Agreed." _We've got to get Dick to stop going in,_ he kept to himself. _What little of him I could actually see looked awful when he handed me those guys, and the air's only getting worse near the entrance…_

They stopped halfway back just long enough to pull their own rebreathers on, neither able to stand the choking smoke that kept trying to settle in their lungs and had to be coughed back up any longer. _Have to be quick about this,_ the elder vigilante thought grimly. _Get Nightwing, get whatever victims we pass along the way, and get the hell out of there. _A glove groped along his arm suddenly, and looking over he discovered that he could barely see the figure traipsing grimly along with him. _Damn it, this can't get much worse. We can't breathe, we can't see, and we can barely stand the heat. We've got to get him out of there, if he's still inside…_ The snake of fear that had slithered back into its hole a short while before was rearing its head once more, spitting and snapping at his roiling guts. Needing to know how far through hell he still had to walk to get to his son, he fingered the side of his cowl. A small readout, invisible to anyone not looking through his lenses, appeared in the lower right corner of his field of vision, indicating the respective distances to both Nightwing and Red Robin as well as the direction he ought to travel in order to get to each. _…Which he is, naturally. Stubborn little bird…_

"Hope you can keep up, boys!" Joker's voice taunted ephemerally along with the song. "Cause believe me, I'm the _bee's knees_! Dance, bitches!"

Unable to see anything past one another as they stumbled through the acrid plumes of destruction, neither vigilante realized that the hovering crazy had dumped a load of accelerant onto the fire until they were knocked to the ground by the shockwave the resulting explosion generated. Both lay for a moment, dazed, before Batman cast a glance over the younger man. Determining that he was unhurt, he rose onto his elbows and peered towards the blast zone. The same wave of hot air that had shoved them violently to the pavement had also cleared the majority of the built-up smoke, giving him a more or less clear view of the now debris-cluttered parking lot that stretched between them and their goal. Beyond it sat the remains of a five-story building, now reduced to one shattered level. In the heart of the rubble pile, the fire roared skyward, begging for more of what it had been fed. "…No," he murmured, the salt in the tears rolling unbidden down his cheeks burning against his overheated skin. _No. No, Dick. Not…not like this. No. Please, chum, not like this…_

"Oh, god, _no_," Tim moaned beside him as he, too, realized what had occurred. "No, no, no…"

The cowl display, jostled by the force of the blast, blinked back on just as its wearer reached over to grip the shaking costumed shoulder beside him. _How close were we?_ he sobbed morbidly as the beat went on around them. _…338 feet. So close…not close enough…Dick…wait._ His eyes narrowed. _The text is blue._ His heart stopped, then transitioned into determined, overjoyed double-time. _The text didn't turn red…it's still __blue__!_ "Tim!"

"What…?" he asked, turning a dirty, sorrow-streaked face towards the speaker. _He used my name. We're in costume. We're in __costume__, and he used my name,_ he boggled. _What…?_ Then he saw the broad, triumphant grin on the other man's face, and knew the answer. _He's…he's still alive in there,_ his eyes widened as a bolt of hope flashed along his nerves._He's still alive!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: I'm changing the rating on this story to M due partially to the extreme bad language in the last chapter and some disturbing imagery in this chapter. Many thanks to everyone for reading, and double thanks to those who have been kind enough to review! Happy reading!**

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"Stay here," Batman barked as he leapt to his feet.

"Like hell," Red Robin objected, following.

The cowled man stopped abruptly and wheeled on him. "_Stay. Here."_

"Nightwing's trapped in a burning, collapsing building. I am _not_ just going to stand by and wait for everything to turn out okay!"

Jerking him close, the elder addressed the younger in a harsh whisper. "If we all three die in there, who will tell Alfred, or any of the others? More importantly, who will stop the Joker? _No one._ And that's unacceptable. Now stop wasting my time, and Nightwing's life, and _stay here_." He released him gently, read the unhappy but resigned set of the other vigilante's mouth as evidence that his command would be obeyed, and ran towards the fire. _Stay there, damn it. Stay safe. As much as I appreciate that you want to dive into this mess and help me find him, I need to know that at least one of you isn't in immediate peril. Although with the Joker on a helicopter-based pyromaniacal spree, I don't suppose that anyone is really secure…_ Shaking his head of that, he climbed a small mound of debris and began to clear splintered, smoldering wood from the mostly-intact doorway.

_150. _The mercifully still-blue number sparked a sudden memory that made his chucking of charred material more violent. _That was the age you swore the giant tortoise we came across after our first mission to the Galapagos together was. You shuffled along after that thing for twenty minutes, counting the rings around its scutes…_ A vision of his twelve-year-old son, as brightly clad as the verdant jungle that had surrounded them as he scooted through the dirt imploring the ancient creature to stop moving for just a minute, assaulted him. _I'm halfway there, chum. Just hold on._

As he stepped inside, a lick of flame tested the air directly in front of his face, driving him back a step. _No,_ he surged forward again. _I can't afford delays._ His time was limited, he knew – his rebreather would only be able to recirculate for so long before the oxygen was depleted, and he had to get out on the same huge breath he'd come in on – but he would push all the way to the end if that was what it took to find his son.

Even if he had been familiar with the layout of the nightclub before it had been firebombed out of existence, the knowledge would have done him no good. The majority of the ground floor's ceiling was holding through some miracle that he pushed aside to be grateful for later, but enough debris from the collapsed upper floors had tumbled down to make the going treacherous. As if that weren't enough, he had come into one of the few sections of the building that wasn't actively burning, and was thus denied even the vague, smoke-filtered firelight he'd had outside. Cursing, he dropped to his hands and knees and reached for another hidden toggle in the cowl. The room became a rainbow as his infrared camera kicked on and began projecting what it saw onto the inside of his lenses. _…This is unfavorable, to say the least,_ his mouth tightened as he surveyed the terrain he would have to make his way through to close the distance between himself and Nightwing. _But we've faced worse together, and come out whole._

Despite being as low to the ground as he could get without slithering, the heat was tortuous. His suit was designed to fit tightly and to wick sweat away as it was produced by the wearer, but not even those special qualities were sufficient to keep his hands from sliding in his gloves as he crawled around smoking pile after shattered beam. There was no way to move in a straight line for more than a few feet, so he wove back and forth between obstacles, trying to head more or less in the direction indicated by the tiny arrow flashing in the corner of his vision. Only the slowly decreasing distance reading alongside the symbol gave him any hope that he was making progress, and as the portions of his costume that were in regular contact with the floor grew uncomfortably hot he found himself glancing at the numbers more and more frequently, using those three digits as a reminder of exactly why he was in here to begin with.

_102. The height of the old cottonwood that used to stand in the front yard. Do you remember how scared I was when I found you practically at the top of it your first summer at the manor, Dick? I do. You weren't even Robin yet, but there you were so far over my head that I could barely pick you out among the leaves. You were fine, of course, but I about shit myself. I forbade you to climb it again, at least unsupervised, but you were still so upset when it was struck by lightning a couple years afterwards and had to be cut down…_

A chirp in his ear signaled the Batplane's arrival outside. _Now to just hope that Joker doesn't spot it,_ he grimaced. If he did, Batman knew that the currently unmanned flyer would become the psychopath's primary target, leaving him without an effective airborne mode of transportation in which to give chase to the hovering villain. _I'll get Nightwing out, put him in the car with Red Robin, and send them home to Alfred,_ he decided as he crunched through a drift of glass in front of what had been the bar. _I'd rather we all went back to the cave in the plane, together, but someone has to take Joker down before he gets bored and looks for something else to torch. I don't want either of the boys attempting that by themselves, and from the look of things,_ he averted his eyes from a fresh corpse whose skull had been violated by a falling brick, _Nightwing isn't going to be in good enough condition to chase a snail. Not for a little while, at least._

Off the edge of the dance floor was a plain of tables and chairs, most overturned, many broken, all in his way. His compass pointed directly through the middle of the mess, however, leaving him no choice but to traverse it. _Why weren't there firefighters in this section?_ the vigilante wondered as he scrambled forward. _Everything here looks unburned; the dead were killed by the smoke and trauma from building waste falling on top of them, so why didn't they dispatch into this area and help Nightwing? Tim said they were pulling back when we arrived, but there were still living victims coming out, so there was really no excuse for…_ He trailed off, jerking to a stop over a fire ax. A few feet away sat a shape that he would have been willing to swear in court was the owner of the tool's helmet, perched at a grotesquely cocky angle atop another heap of wreckage. _Mm. Well, I suppose if they were losing men their hesitancy to send in reinforcements is understandable. _ Hefting the heavy chopper, he began using it to shove bigger pieces of detritus out his way as he advanced. _It isn't going to help my oxygen any to tote this thing around,_ he grimaced, wishing he could read his breathing apparatus' gauge in the dark, _but I may need it when I get where I'm going, and that's what matters. I won't have time to come back for it._

…_68. The length of the private jet._ He gulped. _You begged so many times growing up for us to just take one real vacation, no work, no masks, just play… It would have been so easy, too – the plane just sits there waiting for a phone call from Alfred or I, after all – but we never did it. I always said no because of work, patrol, __something__. I could have taken you so many places, and shared so much of the world with you, just by virtue of being rich, but I didn't. All of our trips together have been serious, either make-the-money or save-the-world type travel. God, what was __wrong__ with me? So much wasted time, time I could have been spending with you, and with the others too…I'm so sorry, Dick. Just hold on, please, and I swear I'll make it up to you. Anywhere you want to go. I'll take a long weekend. No; a whole damn week. You, Tim, Alfred and I…we'll go somewhere together. We'll take a…a family holiday. I promise. Just hold on._

He might not have been able to see his air gauge, but his body could sense the steady change in the amount of oxygen available to it and began to protest. His muscles ached from pulling themselves along in the horrendous heat that pressed down inexorably from above; his eyes screamed as large beads of sweat snuck down between his skin and the cowl to drip into them; his knees, hands, and what little of his face wasn't protected by his headgear or the rebreather felt as though it were on the verge of cracking open, having simply become too dry to hold together. _I must be well into the yellow zone now,_ he considered. _Maybe about halfway done. I still have to carry him back…no,_ he chastised himself. _Don't think about that. We're fine. I just have to find him. Once I find him, everything will be okay…_

He clambered on, dragging the axe behind him when the way was relatively clear in order to save energy. _How long have you been in here? How long since the explosion? I should have been paying attention to the time… Is the Joker still up above, watching, blasting that damned song? He'd better be. He'd just better be, because when I get out of here I'm going after him next, and it __won't__ be a rescue mission._

For all that nothing nearby was actually on fire, everything was so overheated that it was difficult to differentiate between a person and what they were laying on top of. _Five feet away, and I can't tell what's you_ _and what's garbage,_ Batman complained, groping forward. His fingers closed around a chunk of metal, a twisted light fixture, and then, finally, something that moved. It was only a twitch, but it was a sign of life, and not even his dourest mood could have held against the surge of joy the motion caused to shoot through his veins. _0,_ he read as he leaned over the prone figure, able to pick out the younger man's outline now that he knew where he started. _That's the number of times I ever want to come this close to not getting to you in time again._

"Nightwing!" he tried hollering over the ongoing moans and shudders of a building on the verge of collapse. The structural threats had been the soundtrack to his quest since he'd entered the building, and he thought he would willingly take a week of utter deafness over another minute of that haunting cacophony. _Even if he can hear me,_ he realized a second after he'd spoken, _I doubt he can respond. That movement might have been involuntary, for all I know. He's likely not even conscious, especially if he's hurt. And he __must__ be hurt, because he wouldn't be lying still in the middle of a destroyed, flaming nightclub otherwise._ Alarm bells were now sounding steadily in his head over the dearth of breathable air he had to draw off of, but he ignored them, instead sliding his arms underneath the body on the floor and preparing to lift him.

A muffled scream had him aborting his attempt to pull his son closer an instant later. _…Pinned. He must be pinned by something. His torso came up easily, so it can't be an arm…_ His hands flew over seemingly undamaged knees and towards the other vigilante's feet, finding the problem partway along. _Right leg, likely a mid-shin fracture,_ he bristled silently. _He'll be lucky if it isn't compound. It's going to hurt like a bitch for me to carry him with that, but there's no time to try and splint it in here. _And all of that,he refused to allow himself to think, would be a moot point if he couldn't get the beam that had trapped the limb out of the way.

…_It's wood,_ he determined between the heat signature and the feel of the object under his glove. _And with the way he's sprawled I have room to wield the ax._ _But maybe I won't have to…_ He heaved against the mass uselessly, once, then again. It was nearly impossible not to gasp for air afterwards, and the urge only grew worse as he resigned himself and stumbled to his feet. _Three strikes. That's all I have in me. Three will have to be enough to get through it…_

The first blow dug in deeply, leaving a barely discernible difference in the support's appearance to the infrared. Aiming for the thin line that he was fairly certain marked where the blade had connected, Batman swung a second time. The target widened, and as he propelled the heavy head downward one last time he put all of his strength behind it, certain that this had to be the breaking point. Wrenching the ax free, he let it fall to the side, unable to lift it again right then. _…It wasn't enough,_ dread flooded him as he reached for the spot he'd warred against. Indeed, while the wood was split through a good three-quarters of its thickness, it remained in one piece. _…I sincerely hope that you don't remember what I'm about to do, Dick,_ he thought gravely as he raised one foot as high as he could manage without falling over from exhaustion. _This is the only way._ _I'm sorry._ With that, he completed his maneuver, driving the heel of his boot into the weakened section of the beam in an attempt to finish cracking it.

A choking shriek that he couldn't attribute to the walls around them no matter how much he wanted to rang out. He fell back to his knees, shoving the portion of the beam that hadn't caused injury out of the way and proceeding to wriggle the imprisoned leg free. _…Okay,_ his brain skipped. _Now we just have to…get out…but…how…too far…_ Something large fell apart to his rear, but he didn't turn to look. _Can't go back…forward?_

A feeble tug at his elbow drew his attention, and the series of taps that followed piqued his interest. _Emergency exit, ten feet ahead of you and a bit right,_ he translated the Morse code as it rattled against his armor. The hand fell away as quickly as it had appeared, but it had done its work well. _We can make that, I think._

His lungs cried out almost as loudly as Nightwing did when he lifted him once more and began to stumble towards the promised escape. _Don't trip,_ Batman litanied to himself. _If you fall, we're both dead._ _I should have…called the car…positive pressure system…clean air…damn it… _As if he'd heard him thinking, one of the wounded man's dangling arms rose long enough to finger a button hidden between two of the pouches on the cowled figure's utility belt. _You know, Dick, it's scary sometimes how…you read me. Convenient, life-saving, but…scary._

It couldn't possibly have taken more than a few seconds for them to cross the short distance to the auxiliary exit, but Bruce would never be entirely certain. Reaching the wall, he slumped against it, barely able to keep his hold on the figure in his arms as he slid sideways in a passive search for salvation. Black spots swarmed his vision just as his weight triggered the panic bar on the door, and he fell backwards, out of the building and onto a semi-clear patch of pavement.

The worst cry yet tore from the younger vigilante's throat as they both hit the ground, the sound drawing up compassion from a paternal wellspring two decades in the making. Driven beyond what should have been the limits of human endurance, Batman clambered to his feet and stood for a moment, swaying as he tried to take in his surroundings. Below him lay his son, moaning; behind him was a shuddering building on the verge of total structural failure; everywhere were the fumes, the foul gagging smoke that was only a slower path to suffocation than the now-depleted rebreathers that neither had the energy left to tear off. _…Dick,_ his mind clawed for something solid to cling to.

After that, there was nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

Red Robin waited impatiently for several minutes, not budging from where he'd been ordered to stand for fear that Batman would never find him again in the smoke if he left. His worry had overflowed the banks of his psyche following the explosion that he had been certain, if only for a second, had robbed him of the man he considered his elder brother, and each passing second since then had only driven the emotion higher. Shifting uselessly from one foot to the other, he ached to do something, _anything_, that would at the very least let him know that the other two vigilantes were still alive. _I don't want to distract Batman, especially if he hasn't found him yet,_ he wavered, _but…it's been almost five minutes. The building isn't getting any stabler, and,_ he added sarcastically as a fresh cackle rang out overhead, breaking the blessed silence that had come from above since the end of the song, _neither is the Joker._

He was about to flick on the radio in his mask when the airborne laughter trailed off. "Gotham! I must say, I had no idea I'd be so popular tonight…would you believe that I just received a request from Police Commissioner Gordon? All this time I thought he disliked me, and as it turns out he was just waiting for me to demonstrate my abilities as the city's – _hehe – _hottest DJ. Now obviously I can't tell you all what I'm going to do next, since that would spoil the fun, but the Commissioner asked _so_ nicely that I'll throw his officers a little bone and let them in on how I got this party started." The madman's psychotically jocular tone shifted drastically, dropping into a threat. "All of you who didn't think anyone who mattered would take Kesha seriously…you should have listened. _I_ did, and look at all the _fun_ we're having now!"

A new tune, this one just as wholly inappropriate to the situation as its predecessor had been, blared forth. "…He has _got_ to be shitting me," Red Robin muttered, well able to imagine the fringe movements that would be given ammunition by the madman's claim to have based his attack on the song he was pouring down on his injured and frightened victims. "Batman, are you hearing this?" he queried.

No answer.

"…Batman?" _This isn't right…our radios work across the city, so why would they fail now? The smoke could be causing interference, I guess, but I shouldn't just get fuzz…the police bands and emergency radios, maybe? I don't know, we've been able to talk just fine at big events like this before. But if it isn't something screwing with the signal, then…no,_ he set his jaw. _No. He's fine. They're both fine. He probably heard me and is just…you know…busy. _

That was the last drop that was needed, however, for his fear to burst the levees of his control. _I can't stand here any longer. He's going to be pissed, but I have to help them. I have to know that they're okay._ As he picked his way to the crumpled shell of a building that was still putting out heat in unbelievable amounts, the music went on, transitioning into the lyrics that the Joker had purportedly found so inspirational:

_Back door cracked, we don't need a key._

_We get in for free, no VIP sleaze._

_Drink that Kool-Aid, follow my lead;_

_Now you're one of us, you're coming with me._

_It's time to kill the lights and shut the DJ down._

_Tonight we're taking over, no one's getting out._

_This place about to blow, blow…_

_This place about to blow, blow…_

His jaw was protesting the grinding force he was directing through it by the time he found a cleared doorway. Lacking the eldest vigilante's tracking monitor, he had no way of knowing how far away Nightwing had been when the accelerant was dropped, nor whether or not Batman had reached him yet; all he could be certain of was that the pair of them were somewhere in the lightless oven ahead. _…I'll never find them in there,_ he realized, stumbling back from a fresh surge of broiling-hot air. _Even with night vision or thermal sensors on, I have no idea which way to go. But…they could die in there. I have to try…I don't want to be the only one left._ His eyes smarted suddenly. _Alfred…how could I tell Alfred that I stood by outside while they both…no. No, I can't. I won't._

He was just about to step forward and begin groping his way along in the dark when a loud _crack_ reached his ears. A section of the much-abused ceiling gave way a short distance inside, dropping a massive pile of flaming debris into the room and making his stalwart decision to continue forward a moot one. _…And now I'm blocked. Plus,_ his eyes widened, _if this is the way Batman went in, he's blocked, too._ _Shit. I have to find another way, but, _he glanced at his rebreather gauge, narrowing his eyes at it in the dusk,_ I need fresh air first._

Running in the general direction of the street, he pressed a button on his belt identical to the one on Batman's. The Batmobile appeared almost immediately, giving him pause. _…That was awfully fast. One of them must have already called it,_ he determined. _Which means that they're still alive, and possibly outside the building. Maybe they found another exit… _Climbing into the driver's seat with a tiny, delicate sense of hope beginning to blossom in his chest, he ripped off his rebreather to let it reset and quickly tapped an order into the dashboard computer, sending the vehicle flying off again on its previous order. _I'll find you. I have to find you both…_

The car skirted the flame-haloed structure and came to a stop on the opposite side of the building from where he had begun his quest to get inside. _God, I really never would have found you if I'd gone through,_ he shivered as he ran a quick scan of the area for life. "There you are!" he cried out joyfully a moment later as a pair of glowing dots popped up on a map of the block. _Outside, but…not moving,_ he gulped, strapping his equipment back on and reaching for the door handle. _This says you're both alive, but…for how long? I have to get to you…_

Stepping back into the deadly atmosphere around the nightclub after the climate-controlled oasis of the car was heart-shriveling. _If they had to breathe this air at all,_ he tried not to think as he skirted a burning board, _they're going to have serious issues._ As if to verify his fear, a gentle rain of ash began, shining like tainted snow in the fitful, distorted light. _Great. That's just fantastic. No!_ he corrected himself. _…They're alive. They have to be, the computer said they were right around here…they're alive, I'll find them, and they'll be fine. Dick had his rebreather on when I saw him last, and I know Batman was wearing his, too. They didn't breathe any of this. They're fine,_ he litanied as he fumbled along towards the two spots whose locations were burned into his brain._ They're fine, they're just…unconscious for some reason. _

He found Nightwing first, literally tripping over his outstretched legs. _Ow! Oh… _He winced as a harsh, choked cry issued from the injured man's throat. _Oh, shit. Sorry_, _Dick,_ he apologized mentally, crawling over. Sliding the other man's lenses out of the way, he found his eyelids shut; the scream, it seemed, had been automatic. _…I really hope you don't remember that,_ he pled, maneuvering one lax arm up and around his shoulders. _I don't know what's wrong, but it sounded like that caused you a lot of pain. I wish I had a better way to get you to safety than practically dragging you,_ he thought as he pulled dead weight against gravity, _but I'm not Bruce. If I tried to pick you up I'd probably drop you, and I really don't want to hear you make that noise you just did ever again. I'm not going there._

It seemed to take forever to retrace his steps, but he knew it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before he was tucking his brother into the safety of the backseat. Spotting a red dot of warning on the other vigilante's breathing apparatus, he tore it from his face, freeing him to take in the well-filtered gases being pumped through the interior air vents. A long, tense moment slipped by before the passed-out figure drew a gasping, needy lungful, the sound of which allowed Red Robin to release his own held oxygen. _Okay,_ he slumped in relief. _One down. One to go._

Remembering which heaps of deconstructed club he had turned at previously made his trip back much faster. Batman, what few parts of him weren't normally encased in black made to match his outfit by the smoke and soot, was invisible even when the still-ardent fire flared, and it was only by once more falling onto his quarry that Tim located him. _Now for the…__hard__…part,_ he panted, yanking the cowled figure upright and then immediately stooping halfway back to the ground. _Oh, total hell…_ He took one step, then another, each time nearly falling over. _Jesus, Bruce, toting you would be bad enough, but you plus fifty pounds of gear is almost…gaah…impossible. _

He was shaking and panting by the time they reached the car. Dropping the older man back to the ground as carefully as he could, he wrenched the door open, then heaved one last time and shoved the bulk of his load into the passenger seat. As soon as he'd lifted the booted legs in and closed the lethal atmosphere out behind them, he stumbled to the driver's side. Just before he shut his own door, he noted that the second song had stopped. _Good,_ he thought fiercely, reaching to remove both his and Batman's rebreathers before he slumped back against his chair. _Maybe now he'll stop trying to turn a crime scene into a disco._

It was only when the soft moans coming from behind him grew too agonized to be ignored that he forced himself to move again. His muscles cried out as he climbed over the center console and half-knelt on the narrow strip of floor between the rows of seats. "Calm down," he soothed shakily, glancing along the sprawled body and trying to ascertain what sort of injury had managed to overcome the other man's usually high pain tolerance threshold. "Nightwing…what…oh." His midsection lurched as he caught sight of an obscene angle a few inches above the top of a dark boot. "Oh, _jesus_, Dick…that…that shouldn't look like that."

A mewling, half-articulated plea filled the vehicle, but before he could respond a gloved hand closed tightly over his. "Timmy," came a hoarse groan that finally drew the younger vigilante's eyes away from the unnaturally tilted limb that would leave him shuddering out of the blue for weeks to come.

"Dick! It's okay, we're in the car. No one can hear us…here, let me…" He tried to pull away, but the grip on his wrist was unaffected. "…Let me get you something, okay? Morphine. There's morphine in the trunk, I'll get that. It'll make the pain go away, all right? Just…you've got to let me go, I can't get you anything like this."

"…Batman. Get…he's…out there…air…he's…"

"He's not. I brought him in, too," Red Robin assured. "He's right next to me, I promise. He's fine."

"You…him?"

"Yeah. I got him. I got you both. We're all safe. But you're hurt, let me get…"

"Timmy," Nightwing murmured for a second time, his rigid posture relaxing somewhat at the news that their mentor had also been rescued.

"Yeah?"

A proud grimace inched across his mouth. "…Good job, little brother."

"…Dick?" Nothing. "Nightwing?!" He slid closer and leaned in to verify that his patient was still breathing, then gave a deep sigh. "_Don't_ freak me out like that," he muttered, pulling his hand free and maneuvering back to the front of the vehicle. "That was _not_ cool, even if you _did_ compliment me." Pulling his rebreather on once more, he glanced at the caped figure beside him. _I wish you'd wake up, Batman. You're way better at the medical stuff than I am, and his leg…_ His head began to swivel towards the rear again, but he jerked away before his gaze could land on the frightful crease that had appeared in the light armor that was designed to protect the acrobat without hindering his movements. _How hard did something have to hit him to do that? I mean, it definitely explains why he didn't just walk out on his own, but…if he hadn't been wearing armor, would he even __have__ a leg right now? He could have just bled out in there…oh, god…_

The air outside might have been poisonous and virtually opaque, but at least, he reflected as he leapt into it, it was out of sight of that awful break. _His boot is probably full of blood,_ he struggled to keep from vomiting as he lifted the trunk lid and pawed for the bulky first aid kit. _I know it isn't the worst injury I've ever seen, or even the nastiest I've seen on him in particular, but…ugh. Something about it just…it's just so wrong. So very, very wrong. _

Steeling himself, he squared his shoulders and tried to duck back inside. "Batman!" he crowed happily as he found his way partially blocked by the older man's bulk.

"…Get in and close the door," an order was given as the pursed-lipped vigilante somehow squeezed himself into the backseat without disturbing the body draped across it. "…And then give me six aspirin and the purified water."

"Aspirin won't be enough," Red Robin warned as he dug for the requested items. "Didn't you see his leg?"

"I know about his leg," a mildly regretful tone answered. "The aspirin is for my head."

"Your rebreather was in the red. His, too. Maybe you shouldn't be-"

"I'll be fine," Batman cut him off before throwing back a half dozen pills and following them with a long swig of liquid. "Put the cap back on that and try to get him to drink some of it if he wakes up before you get him home," he commanded, passing the water back.

"…You say that like you're not coming with us."

"Is the Joker still loose?"

"Um…yes." _I was a little busy,_ he thought defensively despite the fact that the question had been completely non-accusatory.

"Then I have other things to take care of."

"Yeah, but…_alone_? I mean, Bruce…" A glare was leveled at him. "Seriously? We're in the car, no one can hear us. But going after the Joker by yourself-"

"-Is something I did successfully on many occasions before you came along. Before either one of you came along, in fact. I am uninjured save a few minor contusions and scrapes. I've faced the Joker with far more severe injuries and still emerged triumphant, and I have no reason to believe that the outcome will be any different this time."

"You were unconscious when I found you," Tim argued, crossing his arms. "You're both probably suffering from oxygen deprivation. I don't want the Joker rampaging through the city unchecked, but it's stupid to go after him alone and at less than full strength." He paused."You could call for help, you know."

"I already have. The plane is waiting for me."

"I meant _outside_ help," he rolled his eyes.

"…The Joker is mine."

_…Of course he is. __Yours__,_ he thought bitterly._ He was yours to fight before we came along, and every attempt, successful and unsuccessful, that he's made on the lives of your Robins since then has been a personal affront to you. I __get__ that, I really do, but…why now? Can't you, just for once, take the safe route? Just this time, be more concerned about us, about what we'd do without you, than about the mission? Admit that you're operating at less than full strength right now and let someone else – someone who the Joker doesn't have the ability to kill, maybe – come in and clean up after him? What's wrong with living to fight another day, Bruce? That's what you always tell us to do, to pull out and call for help if we're overwhelmed or injured, so why don't you practice what you preach? _He bit all of that back, swallowing it in the form of a heavy lump that slipped into his bowels and sat there. "…You know," he spat instead, "you say Nightwing's reckless, and sure, he is sometimes, but…don't you think maybe that's just because he's following the example he's been set ever since he was a little kid?"

He couldn't see the elder crime fighter's eyes, but even without that he sensed something sad come into his mien. "…Yes," the rough single word reply hung between them, dirtying the previously clean air.

_…Oh. _"…Batman…I…" _I didn't mean it like this is your fault. It isn't, I just…we can't… _He looked away as a gauntleted hand closed over unresponsive fingers, two clothed in black, two in soot-smeared blue, and squeezed gently. _I'm sorry._

"Take him to Alfred," a quiet request was made. "Call ahead, he might want to have Leslie come out. Set the car on autopilot and then sit back here with him to help keep him from jostling around too much. The less his leg moves, the better. Check him for other injuries if you can, but _don't_ take any of his armor off. If he's wounded elsewhere the pressure might help keep the damage from worsening before you get him home." He paused, seeming to consider whether or not he'd remembered everything. "No morphine," he added. "Not on top of the oxygen deprivation. Wait until you get to backup and better life support equipment in the cave."

"He was in a lot of pain when he woke up earlier."

"He woke?"

"Yes. Just…um…just to ask about you. To make sure you were safe." _Don't you see?_ he pled silently. _He's hurt, you've probably got a massive headache and temporarily slower response times from the lack of air you suffered while you were both laying out there, and I'm…I'm fine. I don't especially like the idea, but if it keeps you both safe… _"…What if _I _go after-"

"_No__," _his suggestion was overridden before it could even be fully voiced. "You will take Nightwing back to the cave and assist Alfred in taking care of him. You always say you wish you were more knowledgeable about medical procedures; here's a prime opportunity to become so. _Do not_ come back to the city tonight," Batman reached over with his free hand to grip his shoulder. "…I'll be back as soon as I can be."

"Batman," Red Robin tried desperately one more time.

"Take care of him, do you understand?" Craning into the front seat, the cowled man reclaimed his rebreather. "…I will see you both at home." With that, he exited out the back door, closing it carefully behind him and immediately vanishing.

Tim watched him go, eyes hot and miserable, then glanced up at an oblivious Dick. "Damn it," he whispered. "Why does it always go like this, huh? It's not fair." Then he gave a much put-upon sigh and reached for the radio handset. _Alfred's going to be ticked with you, Bruce,_ he thought, not envying the wrath the older man would have to face later. _…But so long as you come home safe, I guess he'll probably forgive you. Just…just come home safe, Batman. Please._

* * *

**Author's Note: The next chapter will be up within the next 48 hours, and I should have a new chapter of 'A Spot of Tea' up this week as well. For those who are interested, I've posted Fergie's song from chapter one and the Kesha song from this chapter on my Wordpress blog, Fanon Fanatic. Happy reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

Batman sat behind the controls of the plane for a long second after reaching them, waiting for his head to stop spinning and trying to plan his next move. The Joker, it seemed, had failed to notice the hover-capable jet's presence amongst the clouds of smoke still billowing from the blast zone, a fact for which the vigilante was immeasurably grateful. _If he'd realized that the three of us were on the ground below,_ he grimaced as he slid his fingers beneath his cowl to rub his throbbing temples, _there's no telling what he might have done. How many innocent people did he kill tonight?_ _ Fifty? A hundred? More? _Even those who had made it out of the maelstrom with minimal injuries, he knew, would suffer from the emotional and psychological trauma of what had occurred for weeks or years to come. _All for nothing,_ his lips clamped down into a thin white line. _Pointless, needless deaths, all of them. No one deserves to die like that._

Alone in the sky save for his hidden adversary, he decided that it would be prudent to take advantage of the momentary calm to strengthen himself for the coming battle. Ordering the aircraft to maintain its position, he slipped towards the tail, returning a minute later with a portable oxygen concentrator. _…I should have made sure Nightwing was one of these before I left,_ he thought regretfully as he drew in a deep breath. _Well…Alfred will take care of him. He'll be fine. They'll both be fine, now that they're away from here. I'll take care of the Joker, and everything will be fine…_

As if on cue, a helicopter buzzed the nose of the plane. "_There_ you are, Batsy," a simpering voice came over the radio. "I was starting to think that you were ignoring my invitation. It's a good thing you came, because I saved you a front row seat. Now that you're here, we can start the show."

_'Start the show?' You can't have much more accelerant in that little chopper,_ he peered out the windshield at the small craft that was circling tauntingly nearby. _So what else are you carrying?_

"I can practically hear you thinking," a creepy titter scraped across his ill-treated brain. "You're wondering what more I think I can do from up here. I think you'll be surprised; the dancing might be over, but the fireworks are yet to come. Before that, though, let's play a game." The helicopter swung in again, its skids hovering inches from the surface of the jet. "…Tag, you're it!"

_…He's right there,_ Batman glared through the heavily tinted window. _If I wanted to, I could ram him. I'm so much bigger, I'd knock him right out of the sky. Whoever he's got flying that thing would probably be killed along with him, and maybe a couple on the ground, too, but…how many would that save, not just tonight but in the years to come?_ His fingers twitched. _…No. No, damn it, that's what he __wants__ me to do, destroy him, destroy myself. And even if that wasn't the case, I…no. How could I look the boys in the eyes if I did that? And he knows it,_ he raged._ That bastard __knows__ I won't fire or otherwise attack him directly while we're off the ground, and he's going to use it to his advantage. _"Joker," he said flatly, his tone making it clear that he had no time for childish antics, "you're going to run out of fuel long before I do, and we both know it."

"Cute metaphor. Wrong, at least in the long run, but cute. As for tonight…well, you usually have air superiority anyway. But since you don't seem to like the idea of tag, we'll just have to play follow the leader. So do what I do, or you're out of the game!"

Without another word, the helicopter banked and flew off. Batman took one last, long hit of oxygen, tossed the mask aside to keep from being encumbered by it if he needed to move quickly, and gave chase. _Downtown,_ he cursed as he realized where they were heading. Flying among the tightly-packed skyscrapers was a challenge at the best of times; now, with his headache still pounding away and a lag having developed between his brain and his fingers, building-dodging was the last thing he had the acuity for. _I have to keep him away from the center of the city,_ he determined, speeding up. _If I can cut in front of him, maybe I can get him to change course…_

He didn't get a chance to do much more than close the gap between them, however, before something was chucked out of the chopper. It fell into the darkness, then exploded mere feet above the ground, ripping chunks from the surrounding buildings and creating an unsurvivable hail of debris that rolled up the street in both directions. _Christ. If he starts dropping those in residential areas, or downtown…how many more does he have? And what exactly is it?_ _If it's radioactive…you'd better just hope it isn't radioactive, you son of a bitch._

"Semtex," the Joker volunteered, sounding pleased with himself. "What do you think, Batsy? Should I put a few of the poor out of their misery," his transport swung towards the sprawling low-income neighborhoods on the south side of the city, "or introduce the rich to the concept of despair?" He turned back to face downtown and went quiet, clearly expecting a response. "…_Choose!_"

Instead of replying, Batman schemed. _Heavy explosives, but no fallout to deal with. Good, that means it's safe to detonate the blocks in mid-air. I'll have to hit them before they get low enough for him to set them off, but missiles should be enough to destroy them. I don't know how many he has, but by the time I go through my full arsenal he should at least be running low._ The trick, he knew, would be to make sure that his own weapons didn't cause collateral damage. With that in mind, he adjusted the plane's projectiles to burst some ten stories up, wanting to give himself as much time to work with as possible without causing injury or death if he missed the target. _Now to keep him away from the financial district,_ he set his jaw._ It does me no good to set an airburst at a hundred feet if we're surrounded by buildings several times that height._ As much as he hated to rain any more misery on Gotham's lower classes than they dealt with on a daily basis, he knew that his tactic would be much more effective above low-slung tenements than in the canyons of downtown. Before he could voice his preference, however, a fresh taunt came through.

"What, afraid of tainting your reputation by saying you'd prefer to see the penniless bombed? Don't argue, Batman, I know how you operate. But that's fine. I have a better idea, anyway. Do you know who lives a charmed life? The middle class. You get riots and violent crime in the poor zones and protests and white-collar crime in the rich ones, but no one ever goes for the _real _soft underbelly. Let's be different for once."

_…Well, if you want to make it easy on me,_ the cowled man didn't object as they moved east. The lights were dimmer and less densely packed over the suburbs, however, and he quickly realized that he was hard pressed to hit what he couldn't see. _Night vision won't be much help, either,_ he lamented. _I have the spotlights, but those can only cover so much…_

"Knock knock, Glenkarrie! Time to wake up from your bourgeois fantasies and get a whiff of reality!"

The brick was lost to the night almost as soon as it exited the helicopter, but Batman made an educated guess on wind speed and terminal velocity and fired anyway. _Missed,_ he bit back a hiss of anger. _Damn__ it!_

"Ooh, so close! But not close enough," a pleased hum echoed along the airwaves as the Semtex exploded over someone's backyard. Flames grabbed on to the nearest three structures, their light showcasing the freshly blackened grass below the blast zone. "My airburst is set for eight feet. That should be about bedroom height for two-story houses, don't you think?"

_…You sick fucker._ The idea of people being blown up in their beds turned his stomach, but he had to admit that the choice of neighborhood gave him far more altitude to work with. Calculating in his head, he adjusted his own missiles to go off fifty feet lower than they had before. _If I could __see__ the goddamn packages I'd have a chance at stopping them, but I can't track with the spotlight and aim at the same time. This feels futile… _

"Joker! Cease and desist!" a new voice interjected itself on their channel. Two helicopters, both emblazoned with the letters '_GCPD_,' dropped into position just ahead of the Batplane, flanking the psychopath. "Land your chopper and surrender peacefully!"

"…Did they send a _newbie_ to arrest me?" an offended reply came. "I mean, it took you long enough to get off the ground, but…Batman, are you seeing this? He _must_ be new; no experienced Gotham cop would really think that protocol-manual bullshit was going to work on me. Heh," he laughed, "they must not like you much at the station, newbie, if they forgot to tell you that. But don't feel bad, they'll all say you're a hero at your funeral. Here, have a welcome present from me and the gang."

"_Bank hard left!"_ the vigilante commanded as the Joker's conveyance rose precipitously. Even if he hadn't been slowed somewhat by the aftereffects of oxygen depletion, there wouldn't have been time for him to try and intercept the package that was thrown out with purposeful intent only a moment later. The plane shook nauseatingly under the force of the detonation, a warning alarm blaring to life. A gauntleted hand smacked down to silence it as the twisted wreckage of the first helicopter fireballed to the earth.

"Oh, jesus christ, no!" someone in the remaining police chopper screamed into their headset. A short burst of gunfire followed, the shots pinging off of the villain's now-smoking ride. Another block of Semtex appeared, and Batman was certain that he was about to watch a replay of what had happened only moments before. The second pilot, however, jerked his machine harshly to the side, avoiding the fate that had been dealt to his fellow officers. A fresh shockwave emanated from almost dead-center between the trio of aircraft, and for a second the only sounds on the radio were the reports of caution bells and the squeals protesting fuselage.

"…Fall back and spotlight the packages as they fall!" the caped man shouted at the remaining police vehicle. To his relief, they did as they'd been told, retreating to just above and to the side of him. _They're out of the way of my missiles, and if they do their job I might be able to keep anyone else on the ground from being killed. Good. This may work. If the aspirin would just kick in…_

"Teamwork?" Joker spat. "That's just a marketing word for cheating, Batman. I've always let you slide when it comes to your little minions, the same as you do with me – fair's fair, after all, tee-hee – but teaming up with the police department…that's low. _Speaking_ of little birdies…where are they tonight? You always bring them to my parties as your guests, so why aren't they here? Unless," a sliver of knowing slipped into his tone, "they've already _been_ to one party tonight, and weren't in any fit shape to go to another one after, maybe. Am I right, Batsy? Did I get two birds with one stone?"

The figure behind the plane's controls bristled, his lip pulling back from his teeth in a primal snarl as he recalled the sickening feeling of bringing his boot down on the beam pinning Nightwing's broken leg. "You're wrong," he said, somehow managing to keep his voice even despite the scream that was echoing in his ears. "You aren't the only person in Gotham worthy of our time, you know. They're busy elsewhere tonight." _They're busy not being blown up, and that's…that's an important task. You have no idea how important it is, Joker. No idea at all._

There was silence on the station for a long moment. "…You're lying, Batman."

"You're losing fuel, Joker." Indeed, a thin stream of liquid was running from lead helicopter, the occasional droplet flying back to splatter against the Batplane's windshield.

"You always have to ruin all the fucking _fun_, don't you? Fine. You want me to land? I'll land. But I'm not landing heavy." With that warning he took off, zooming at what the vigilante would have wagered good money was the chopper's top speed back towards the seediest sections of town.

Bundle after bundle of explosive material began to appear in the sky, forcing him to slow his pursuit in order to destroy them. The police helicopter at his side did a fair job of picking out the packages, and once he could see what he was aiming at he managed to keep all but the last two from reaching dangerous altitudes. _Damn it! I should have gotten all of them,_ he cursed as the final brick went off on the ground. Had he been at full strength, he knew, he wouldn't have had a problem; however, his vision had become unpleasantly fuzzy towards the end of the task as his headache peaked again, and their approach on the city proper had required his attention as well. Now, seeing the Joker's helicopter setting down shakily atop a grungy shopping complex near Crime Alley, he brought the plane back into hover mode and lowered it to a roof a block away.

The oxygen concentrator had slid across the floor during one of the rougher portions of the flight, and as he headed for the exit the vigilante had to step over it. Pausing, he bent over and picked up the mask. _It can't hurt anything,_ he told himself, taking several deep breaths, _and it might clear my head_. _He'll wait. He's been saying he wants to dance for the past hour, after all; he'll still be there in a minute._

The Joker had indeed waited, and was tapping his foot impatiently by the time heavy boots landed a few yards away. "You're slow," he sneered.

"And you're done. Give it up." _Don't make me work for you. Not tonight. Not with my boy hurt at home and fires burning all over the place._

"…For tonight, maybe."

Caution flooded him. _…No, that's __too__ convenient of a surrender. What's up your sleeve?_ "I don't believe you."

A toothy smirk spread across the whitewashed face. "That's why I let you live, Batman."

The last syllable had only just fallen from his lips when gunfire came from three directions. The caped figure dove for cover behind a raised vent, hunkering down as bullets ricocheted off of the wall above him. He peeked out only once, but it was enough for him to see what he needed to; his adversary, laughing with his head thrown back and his arms clasping his sides as if they were likely to burst from amusement. _Metal rotor blade overhead,_ the pinned man checked off mentally as he reached for his belt. _Metal weapon in hand. The party's over, Joker._

The _ping_ that signaled the Batarang's connection with the chopper was followed immediately by the sound of a body landing hard on the tarred rooftop. A moment later the discharge of ammunition died out, and on the heels of that a single pointed ear appeared around the air ducting. When no attempt was made to stop him, Batman emerged entirely, scanning the nearby buildings in case any of the villain's henchmen had lingered once their boss went down. _Typical cheap goons,_ he scoffed as he crossed to the spread-eagled form that had caused him so much grief that evening. _What good is an army of followers if they scatter the second something goes wrong?_

He was rising from securing a zip-tie around the criminal's ankles when a man slid out from inside the crippled helicopter and approached. "Is…is he dead?"

"…No."

"Could…I mean…could you make him that way?"

"…No," Batman repeated, accompanying the word with a hard glare.

"But he's…he…how many times have you had to catch him, huh? How many people'd he kill tonight? I didn't want to fly him, he _made_ me. He had me kidnapped just for this, and I saw what he did. I saw it all." He stared at the black-clad figure before him and trembled as he went on. "Everything he's done, and you keep letting him live. _Why_? Why do so many others have to die so that a man like that can live, huh?"

"…Choosing when others die isn't what I do," the vigilante growled.

"Isn't it? Because you shot those bombs he was dropping out of the sky like it was. I don't want to make trouble," he raised his hands. "I'm no crook. He literally put a gun to my head, you know? I'm a good guy. I pay my taxes, follow the speed limit, make an honest living. But…what you're saying, it's contradictory. It doesn't make any sense."

"…Are you encouraging me to stop protecting Gotham?"

"No! God, no. I'm just wondering why you don't protect Gotham a little, uh…well…a little better, I guess. That's all. I'm sorry," he apologized, stumbling back a step as Batman drew a sharp, hissing breath.

"...I don't have time to explain my decisions to civilians," he ground out. "Stay here and wait for the authorities to land." A breeze picked up as he spoke, signaling the descent of the police chopper that had been circling ineffectively during the short-lived fight. Surveying the scene once more, he concluded that he had no further business there and turned away, vanishing towards where the plane was waiting so quickly that the man he left standing behind him gasped.

…_I could have killed him,_ he mused quietly to himself as the jet rose and prepared to speed home. _I should have killed him, so many times. I should have killed him for Gotham, and for Jason, and for everyone else he's hurt. But I didn't. I wouldn't. I can't._ Then he shook his aching head, dragged the mask for the oxygen concentrator back up to his face, and slumped into the pilot's seat. _I just can't do it, even if maybe – just maybe – that would be justice._

* * *

**Author's Note: I'll be posting the last chapter of this little tale tomorrow. Thanks for reading, and double thanks to those who have been so kind as to review!**


	5. Chapter 5

"Put this mask on right now," was the first thing Bruce heard as he stepped into the cave's medical section.

"I don't need it."

"And I don't believe you," Leslie retorted. "So put the mask on. If your blood oxygen is as low as Dick's was, it's unbelievable that you're still upright."

He tugged the cowl off and stood holding it loosely in one hand, the blackened square around his mouth and nose contrasting starkly with the exhausted pallor of the rest of his face. "I used the concentrator the entire way back. I'm lightheaded and sore, but other than that I'm fine." _Better than I was when I headed out after the Joker earlier, that's for sure,_ he didn't think it intelligent to share.

The physician studied him for a long moment, seemingly trying to verify his claims, then turned away. "Here," she held out a plastic clip. "Put your finger in there and sit down."

Knowing better than to argue any further, he obliged her. As he waited to be given the all-clear, he studied the room. "Leslie…where are the boys?" _She said Dick's blood oxygen was low, so they must have made it back to the cave, but…they aren't here. The bed's been stripped like it's been used, but where __are__ they?_

"We moved Dick upstairs about twenty minutes ago," she replied with a commiserating glance. "Alfred thought he'd be more comfortable in his own room. Tim stayed with him, naturally," she smiled. "As worried as they both were about you, they looked so worn out that I don't think you'll find either of them awake."

"Are they all right? How bad is Dick's leg?"

"Tim wasn't hurt, just shaken. He had to leave for a minute after we exposed the wound. I can't say I blame him; seeing bone sticking out like it was wasn't fun for any of us. That was nothing compared with trying to set it, though. It's bad, Bruce, but it's fixable," she explained, seeing his discomfort. "I'm certain that he's going to need surgery sometime in the next few days. I'm not an orthopedist by any means, but I will be utterly shocked if he doesn't end up with internal hardware. Plates, screws, the works."

"…You set it even though he's going to need surgery?" Bruce frowned as one of the monitors beeped.

"I had to dress the puncture where the bone exited. Fortunately his armor kept a lot of the soot and other debris he was coated in from contaminating the opening, or who knows what sort of god-awful infections we'd be dealing with. I would say that Dick should be in the hospital tonight," she added pointedly, "but I know it won't do any good, so I'll just keep it to myself. I have an orthopedist in mind for the surgery; I'll call him in the morning for you, give a referral, so to speak. He's discreet, he won't ask too many questions."

_The hospital…his injuries would be awfully hard to explain to them, especially if he still had low blood oxygen when we took him in. Still, if Leslie thinks it's necessary…_ "Was he hurt otherwise? I mean…is it safe to _not_ take him to an ER? I could take him to the Watchtower, if nothing else."

"If he wasn't relatively stable, Bruce, I would have had an ambulance out here already, and I certainly wouldn't have let him be moved upstairs with only Tim for company. I would have expected you to know that; I've only been dealing with his patrol mishaps for seventeen years, after all. To answer the other part of your question, he _does_ have other injuries, but his leg is the worst by a long shot. You're at ninety-three percent, by the way," she removed the clip from his finger and gave him a hard look. "…I don't like that you're still below optimal, but trying to keep you down here for oxygen when you haven't checked on the boys yet would do nothing but annoy us both. Just take your time going up the stairs so you don't pass out, and give yourself a couple of days before you go chasing after any other nasty men. Understood?"

"I can't guarantee that. The way the authorities handle Joker, he could be busted out of Arkham again tomorrow."

"Yes, and if that happens don't you _dare_ go off after him alone again. You'll give Alfred a heart attack, I swear. He was extremely unhappy when Tim told him where you'd gone. _Alone_," she stressed again. "That was foolish, Bruce. I've heard all of your arguments about this before," she waved them off before he could launch into them, "but none of us are as young as we used to be." Her voice dropped. "Leaving everyone thinking you're dead again, or even worse actually…well. If you had seen what your absence did to them – to Alfred and Dick in particular, although I know Tim felt it hard, too – maybe you'd be a bit more cautious with your life. Don't torture them like that again, please."

"And what do you think happens to me if it's one of _them_ that gets killed next?" he asked harshly, shoving his finger towards the ceiling. "I can't take another, Leslie. I _can't_. However I die, god forbid it be because I've lost one of them."

"…I know," the woman nodded, her face softening in understanding. "For tonight, though, that isn't something you have to worry about. So go see Alfred," she instructed, hustling him out of his chair, "and let him know that you're still breathing. Soothe his worries the way I've hopefully done with yours."

"Where is he?"

"Over in laundry, trying to wash out Nightwing's costume to see if any of it's worth salvaging."

"…Right." He hesitated at the doorway. "Leslie?"

"Hmm?"

"You should stay tonight. I need to sleep, but…I think he could use some company."

She hesitated, her expression torn. "I'm worried about the clinic. From what Tim was telling us about the state of the nightclub, they're probably swamped. The hospitals will filter the less serious cases our way to make room for the critical patients in their wards." She drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "…But then again, if they really needed me they would call. Besides, we both know Alfred won't take a break until he's cleaned everything that any of you have worn or touched tonight. He's just as stubborn as the rest of you. Foolish, bull-headed men…" Her voice trailed off for a moment. "Well, if I'm not going to sleep tonight in any case, I might as well not sleep while helping a friend. Besides, this way I can check Dick's leg again before I leave…all right, you convinced me. Now _go_, would you? Give that poor man some relief, then get some of your own."

"…Thanks, Leslie." _Alfred,_ the billionaire gave a silent sigh as he left her and walked the short distance to the cave's laundry facilities._ I'm sorry. By the time I had the experience to understand what I was putting you through every time I left on patrol, it was far too late for me to turn back. Forgive me._ "…Alfred? Ugh," he recoiled involuntarily at the sight that met his eyes when he turned the corner.

"Master Wayne," the butler greeted, tension visibly fleeing his posture as he gave the younger man the same head-to-toe look that the physician had and found everything satisfactory. "Here," he held out a damp washcloth. "You may wish to clean your face. I don't imagine you'll be showering before you head upstairs?"

"No," Bruce agreed, taking the rag. "Uh…are you about done there?"

"Pouring blood from Master Dick's boot, you mean?"

"…Yeeeah."

"No, sir. I'd only just begun when you came in. I can wait until you've departed to finish, if you'd prefer."

"…How can you stand to do that? To salvage and try to repair what we destroy at night?"

"I can't, to be completely frank," the Englishman shuddered slightly. "…But your equipment is both essential to protecting your lives and frightfully expensive. Additionally, the more frequently we have to purchase replacements the more likely your secret identities are to be found out. So I simply try not to think about it beyond hoping that it will be a rarely needed chore. When it _is_ a required task, I find it helps to reflect on what might have been had whoever's clothing I'm dealing with not been so protectively dressed." A faint smile played around his lips as Bruce chucked his now-blackened wipe towards a hamper. "Stiff upper lip and all of that would, I suppose, be the short answer."

_God, that's awful. _"…Alfred, throw them out."

"Sir?"

"His boots. Don't…don't even waste your time trying. You know you'll never be satisfied that they're clean enough, and you'll just end up replacing them. Besides, it doesn't sound like he's going to be needing his costume for a while," he grimaced. "…How is he? Leslie told me a little, but she got distracted lecturing me before I got many details."

"He is himself, Master Wayne," the butler shook his head, a pained amusement shining in his eyes. "We tried to give him morphine when he woke up in medical, and he refused to take anything more than a Vicodin. Fortunately he passed out again shortly afterwards – it would have been unbearable had he been awake when Dr. Thompkins set his leg – but while he was conscious he managed to crack two or three rather awful jokes. Most of his waking moments, however, were spent fretting about you," he shot him a sideways look, "and with good reason, I daresay."

"Well, I'm home now," Bruce tried to gloss over his solo mission, "and the Joker's on his way back to an inadequate level of confinement."

"And as usual, sir, I am supremely glad for the former part and highly disappointed about the latter. I'm sure that both Master Dick and Master Tim will feel the same. As for the specifics of his injuries," he changed the subject, "I assume that Dr. Thompkins told you the state of his leg?"

"She mentioned surgery."

"Yes. She has a surgeon in mind, and I've no reason to object to her choice. Other than that small issue and the misery it's likely to bring – you know as well as I do that it's difficult enough for the young sir to sit through a long meeting, let alone through eight or more weeks of recovery – he came home with two cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a pair of sprained fingers, an extremely mild concussion, and an assortment of cuts and contusions that are going to blossom quite marvelously over the next few hours. I don't know what we're going to tell the orthopedist, let alone the press."

"…Motorcycle accident," the billionaire decided after a pensive moment. "Say it happened here on the property. He went off-roading on one of the back trails, misjudged a turn, drove off of a low bank. It works with his injuries and explains why there was no police report filed." He paused. "…He wasn't burned at all, was he?"

"No. It's going to take several good scrubbings to get the soot completely out of his pores, which I imagine will be the case for you as well, and all three of you are rather whiffy, if you'll pardon my candor, but he wasn't directly hurt by the fire, thank goodness. Although…tell me, Master Wayne, was it all as terrible as Master Tim's description suggests? I didn't wish to check the news stations after I heard Master Dick call for backup dealing with something Joker-induced."

"…Alfred, if a hundred people didn't die tonight then I've forgotten how to count. And that's not including anyone hurt by the bombs he dropped after he left the area over the club. He destroyed a police helicopter, too; there must have been at least two men in there. I won't be watching the news for a few days, either. Let's…let's leave it at that." _Nightmares for everyone tonight, I think,_ he groaned internally. _It's going to be tough to keep Dick from thrashing around when he has one, he always tries to fight his bad dreams off…well, Tim knows that. That's probably part of why he stayed upstairs with him._

"Terrible," the butler shook his head, his mouth tight. "Absolutely horrific. Those poor people, to have gone out for a good time only to be caught in one of that…madman's…schemes. I rarely think this, sir, let alone speak the sentiment aloud, but there are moments when I am glad that neither you nor the boys' personal tendencies run towards dance halls and the like. Tonight is one of those times. Even if you did get stuck dealing with the disaster anyway, at least you were somewhat prepared for it when you went in. You wouldn't have been had you been part of the group of merrymakers instead of who you are."

"Yeah…"

A short, comfortable silence spun out between them, each man lost in his own thoughts. "Well, I'm sure you want to get up to Master Dick's bedroom," Alfred broke in finally. "I'll be down here for some time tonight still, but you ought to get some rest. Just leave your clothes out when you change, I'll take care of them. Here, I'll put your cowl away after I've given it a good cleaning," he reached for it. "If I don't get that soot off before too much longer there's no telling what sort of damage it might do, and you don't even want to know what it costs to replace one of these."

"I probably don't, no," Bruce nearly chuckled as he handed over his headgear. "…Thanks, Alfred." _For so much. For everything._

"Of course, sir. Go on, now, off to bed with you. You've had a long night, and tomorrow promises to be neither short nor easy on any of us unless Master Dick's leg somehow heals of its own accord while he's sleeping."

"Leslie's staying over. I already talked to her."

"She needn't do that. She's done more than enough just by coming out," the butler frowned.

"Yeah, well, I guess she wants to help you wash clothes."

"Nonsense, there's no need-"

"I won't listen to you complain until dawn, Alfred," Leslie cut off his dignified protestations as she entered. "I'm here to help, and that's what I'm going to do. So instead I suggest that we talk about something that won't annoy us both to tears." With that she picked up the boot that had been left on the counter after Bruce's arrival. There was a sloshing sound, driving her to peek inside. "…Ugh."

"We've decided to simply start over when it comes to Master Dick's footwear, Dr. Thompkins."

"Thank god," she put the article back where she'd found it. "…I figured you would have run up those stairs by now, Bruce," she commented.

"You're the one who told me to take it slow," he rebutted without ire.

"Do you require anything before you retire, sir?" Alfred was immediately attentive. "Aspirin, perhaps, or a glass of water? I'd be happy to bring something upstairs behind you."

"I'm fine. I've had aspirin – they're sort of working – and I think seeing the boys and getting some sleep will take care of the rest." He held up one hand in a vague wave. "Good night, Alfred. Leslie," he added.

"…Shall I bring breakfast to Master Dick's chamber in the morning, then?" the Englishman issued one final query.

…_Yeah, I don't think Tim or I are going to make it back to our own beds tonight, _the billionaire considered. _Dick coming home injured always leads to a sleepover. It's just the way of things in this house. _"That sounds good, Alfred," he concurred as he headed to change out of his sticky, rotten-smelling costume. _It's been a while since I got to have breakfast with them both at once. I wish the circumstances were different, but…I'll take what I can get. _"That sounds really, really good."

* * *

**Author's Note: **There will be an epilogue chapter posted tomorrow featuring some lovely Bruce/Dick chat and maybe a little more Tim. Happy reading!


	6. Epilogue

"…Hey, Bruce," Dick murmured as the door to his bedroom opened quietly.

"You didn't even look. What if I'd been Alfred?" Bruce teased, stepping inside and moving towards the bed.

"Alfred always knocks. Tim knocks most of the time. You, though? You've never knocked. You just come in." A faint smile creased his lips. "Act like you own the place or something."

"Or something." Perching on the edge of the mattress, he studied the pale visage resting on what had to be half the pillows in the manor. "How do you feel? I see you managed to outrun your pills." The orthopedic surgeon Leslie had recommended had taken one look at Dick's leg and insisted on operating first thing Monday morning. In the two days since, the injured man had spent more time asleep than awake, his responses broken and nonsensical even when his eyes were open. Coming home to find his son lucid loosened the fearful hand that had been tangled up in Bruce's guts ever since they'd wheeled him back into the operating room at the beginning of the week, and he sighed. "Or didn't you take any?"

"That one," Dick verified. "I hate the way painkillers make me feel so…out of my own head. You know?"

"I know. I don't like them, either. But the pain has to be worse than that feeling." _I saw the x-rays,_ he shuddered, remembering how he hadn't been able to decide which was worse; the sickening disjunction between the two halves of the younger man's tibia in the pre-surgery picture, or the bevy of screws and plates that made the post-operative shot look like an exhibit from a torture museum.

"It will be in another, oh, twenty minutes or so. And when it is I'll probably give in. But for right now, I'd rather pretend like I can do without them. It makes me feel better about getting hurt in the first place."

"You were saving lives. There's no shame in that, regardless of whether or not you were hurt in the process," Bruce frowned. "Where is this coming from?"

"…I don't know," he turned his head away. "I just hate that you and Tim had to put yourselves at risk to haul my sorry ass out of there."

"We don't."

"Huh?"

"We don't hate it. We're out there to watch each other's backs, Dick, you know that."

"…Yeah. I know. But that doesn't make me feel any better about it. I don't like being the one who has to be saved."

"Nobody does. But what matters is that you _were_ saved. Neither Tim nor I was hurt in the process, either, so you have _nothing_ to feel bad about."

"Except that you had to go after the Joker by yourself," came an immediate rebuttal. "I might not remember much about the last few days, but I remember that. That was _stupid_, Bruce."

"You're about the eighth person to share that particular opinion, thanks," the billionaire said, his voice turning cold. "Someone had to go after him, and waiting wasn't an option."

"No," Dick negated, giving him a knowing look. "_You_ had to go after him. Not me, not Tim, not Superman, _you_, because in your head the Joker is _yours. _Don't argue, we both know that was what it was. Even if you had been one hundred percent certain that you could have waited for backup, you wouldn't have. So long as you were conscious, you'd have given chase, no matter how idiotic it was."

Bruce leaned forward and stared into the corner of the room for a long moment, thinking. _…You're right. Of course you're right. And the others are right, too, but…fuck._ "I know," he breathed finally.

"I wish you'd quit doing that with him. You're going to get yourself killed."

There was a tearful note in his tone, and the billionaire winced. _Dicky…don't._ Turning back to face him, he met his eyes. "Probably," he acknowledged, trying to ignore the flinch that that admission caused. "But I can't stop. I can't stop going after him any more than I can stop running into burning buildings after you. The risk doesn't matter in those moments; the possible outcome, though, does. And that's what I focus on when I make those decisions, is the…the final outcome."

The younger man cocked his head to one side, making a face as the action pulled on the swollen flesh of his recently disarticulated shoulder. "You say that like you don't really believe it," he commented curiously.

_God, I can't hide things from you even when you're half-doped on pain meds and coming off of major surgery, _Bruce's lip and Alfred had both been giving him looks since the night of the fire that suggested that they knew something was bothering him, but neither had said anything about it, so he'd assumed that they were writing it off as worry over Dick. As overwhelming as his concern over his eldest's condition was, however, beneath that had been a creeping guilt born of the remarks of the Joker's unwilling pilot. _You would understand about that, chum, I know you would, but…the last thing you need right now is to be burdened with my uncertainty._

"Bruce. Seriously, quit it and tell me."

"Quit what?" he tried to brush him off.

"Quit thinking that I'm in no condition to help deal with whatever it is that's bothering you. You always do this," he reached out to touch the sitting figure's hand, "and I always end up dragging it out in the end. So save me the work and just spill, huh?"

He was sorely tempted, but shook his head. "You need to concentrate on healing," he ordered. "Besides, nothing's bothering me."

"Yeah, lying's totally the way to go on this," Dick said flatly. "I'll _never_ see through that, not in a million years." He sighed. "Look, I feel useless laying here in bed around the clock and doing nothing. Tim tried to bring me one of the laptops from downstairs this morning, but I couldn't do much with it, not with a fucked up shoulder on one side and buddy-taped fingers on the other. So maybe if you let me try and figure out whatever's bugging you – and I know there's something, Bruce, so don't insult my intelligence by insisting that there isn't – I'll feel like I actually did something helpful today. Okay? Please?"

"…It's nothing, Dick."

"Bruce, if you don't tell me I swear to god I'll sic Alfred on you."

The billionaire startled. "…That's an unusually low tactic for you." _And an extremely unpleasant prospect for me,_ he added silently, well able to imagine what sort of methods the butler might resort to if he found out that he was bottling something up.

"Me dragging emotions out of you is like you dragging me out of burning buildings. I can't stop." He paused. "I'm not letting this go, Bruce. You hesitated. You don't believe that you really focus on the final outcome, for some reason, and I want to know why. I want to know why you feel that way because I think that you _do_ focus on the final outcome. You're the most forward-thinking person I have ever met, and I know that's a talent that you put a lot of stock in. If it wasn't, you wouldn't have spent so much time trying to pound it into me," he grinned. "So what is it? Why are you doubting yourself? It's not like you to do that."

Huffing slightly and hating this reversal of their usual roles – _I'm__ supposed to comfort __him__, damn it, not the other way around – _Bruce slowly shared the conversation that had taken place between himself and the coerced helicopter pilot. "…I asked him if he wanted me to stop protecting Gotham," he concluded, glaring at the floor, "and he said no. He said he just wanted to know why I don't protect it…better."

"Protect it _better_?" Dick snorted in disbelief. "That guy had no idea what he was talking about, Bruce. You _know_ he didn't, so why is this bothering you?"

"Because he was right, in a way. It leads back into looking ahead, and focusing on the final outcome." He shifted unhappily. "I put the Joker back in the hands of the authorities time and time again, and he always gets out. He always kills again. And I always spare his life, perpetuating the cycle. 'Why do so many others have to die so that a man like that can live?' That's what he asked me, Dick, and the only answer I had was that I just don't kill. But I couldn't say that to him. I couldn't say that to him, because at the time it felt like an incredibly flippant, conceited reason."

"…Like you were saying that the Joker's victims had to die so that you could feel morally superior to him?"

"Yeah. Like that."

"…Huh." They were silent for a long moment, Dick's undamaged fingers slipping in to nestle against Bruce's palm as each man sat lost in his own thoughts. "You know…it's funny that you're doubting yourself over this."

"…In what way is any of this _funny_?"

"Not funny haha, the other funny. It's funny because Jason once asked you the exact same question about the Joker, and you were so confident in your answer that he didn't even argue." Seeing the billionaire's confused expression, he arched an eyebrow. "You don't remember that?"

"No. I don't."

"It must have been one of those weird mid-week weekends I used to have when I was with the BPD, because I'd come over to help you with the Joker but Jason wasn't allowed to go out with us because he had school the next day. We were about to leave, and he asked you why you didn't just finish it. And you paused," he recalled, "and turned back to him, and wanted to know what he meant. We both _knew_, of course, but…I think you wanted to hear him say it. I think he knew that was what you wanted, too, because he got hesitant for a minute before he finally spat it out and asked why you didn't just kill him to keep him from hurting others when it was so clear that he was never going to stop, never going to be rehabilitated. I don't think he was suggesting that you actually _kill_ him – he knew better than that, at least back then – but…it was like he was trying to figure out how you could control yourself around him, when you knew what he would do the next time he broke out, and the time after that, and the time after that."

"…What did I say?" Bruce queried. _Why don't I remember this? This is important, so how come it all seems new to me? I did get hit on the head that night, I think, but…I didn't realize that I'd lost this memory._

"You told him that while killing the Joker would keep him from hurting others in the future, it would also send the message that sometimes killing was justified. You said that killing and justice were irreconcilable ideas. That was all you said to Jason, but…in the car, on our way into town, you went further. I asked you something – I don't remember what now – and you told me that the war between justice and injustice is a battle of ideas. That pure justice isn't attainable, but that we don't get any closer to it if we bastardize it by killing in its name. You said that you don't believe in absolute truths…except that one. And I believed you, Bruce. I still do.

"That guy on the roof…he doesn't have the right context to understand that. He's blinded by the image of Batman, justice crusader. He doesn't see the man under the mask, the _person _who has to live with what that image does while he's protecting Gotham. The reason that you don't kill is because killing is not only an injustice, it's an injustice that you can't make right. Right?"

"…Yes. That's true."

"And you don't kill because fighting injustice with injustice doesn't make sense. It's unreasonable. Right?"

"…Yes," he agreed again.

"Well then, try this on for size; 'your reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but for the uprightness of the decision,'" Dick intoned. "Thomas Jefferson said that. You don't know what would happen if you killed the Joker, Bruce. Maybe it would save lives; maybe it would cost even more lives than if you continue to let him live. What if it sent Batman into an existential crisis? You do _not_ want to have one of those over killing the Joker, trust me on that," he said darkly. "But that's not my point. What I'm trying to get at is that you don't know the future. All you have to go on is your reason, your logic. You know that, you've been telling it to me for damn near twenty years.

"Is not killing the Joker the _right_ decision? I don't know. But I do know that, for you, it's the _upright_ decision. You can't fight injustice with injustice and expect justice to be the end result, and that's a perfectly reasonable calculation. 'As much as you want to, you can't control every outcome; all you can do is fight for what you believe in and hope for the best.'" He paused. "…You said that last part, by the way."

_And you remembered it_, the billionaire marveled silently. "…So I can't kill the Joker because it's unreasonable." _I never broke it down that way before,_ he mused. _But it feels right. _

"Right. The same way that, to you, it's unreasonable to leave me in a burning building, or to send Tim off to chase the Joker on his own while you recover from oxygen deprivation. Looking back now, would you have changed those decisions?"

"No, of course not."

"So if you had the chance to do it again, you wouldn't leave me to die, or let Tim go after creepazoid?"

"…Dick, you already know the answer to that."

"Right. And you already know the answer to _this_. You believe in not killing, so you do your best to not kill. By your own philosophy, then, all that's left is to hope for the best. So stop tearing yourself apart over this and just _hope_, Bruce."

…_That's not nearly so hard to do with you around to remind me that there are still things in the world worth hoping for, kiddo,_ the seated man gulped as a sunny, encouraging smile was sent his way. "You have a hell of a knack for making me feel better, you know that?" he whispered.

"It's a two-way street," Dick replied, gesturing to the clock beside his bed. "Check it out; we've been talking for forty five minutes, and no pain meds. Besides," he added, "I had a great teacher."

"You did _not_ learn empathy from me."

"Maybe not. But you _did_ teach me reason, and we both know that the most empathetic argument in the world would be useless on you if it wasn't based firmly in logic."

"You might have a point there," the billionaire conceded. "…Dick?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"Thank yourself," he gave a one-armed shrug. "I wouldn't be here to have said all those things if it wasn't for you, so…"

"So let's not talk about that," Bruce said firmly. "…Also, I think you should take your medicine now."

"I can hold out longer."

"I believe it. But that doesn't make it reasonable for you to do so."

"Trying to turn my lesson back on me?" he smirked.

"No. I'm trying to say that you made yourself useful, and that furthermore some of the pills you're putting off taking are antibiotics that you need to swallow regardless of how stubborn you want to be about the others."

"I don't need-"

"It might feel hard to be useful when you're stuck in bed, but it's _impossible_ to be useful when you're dead. So take your damn pills, Dick," a slow grin spread across his face, "or I'll sic Alfred on you."

"That's low, even for Batman," the younger man responded with a matching expression. "Low, but effective." He sighed. "Hand them over. _Just_ the antibiotics, I don't want the painkillers yet."

The billionaire dished out a palmful of capsules, then made an amused sound a short while later as he watched his son sleep. "I guess the Vicodin I slipped in without you noticing was pretty effective, too," he said softly, brushing his hand briefly across the pain-lined forehead. _You're probably going to be pissed at me for that later, but…it's worth it to know that you're safe for the next three or four hours. Just to be sure, though,_ he narrowed him eyes, _I don't think I'll go anywhere for a while. It wouldn't be the first time you faked sleep to get me out of the room so you could do something you weren't supposed to, and if you fall on that leg…well, that can't happen if I'm here._

A knock on the door caught his attention. "Tim?" he called, low.

"Yeah," the portal opened. "Is he asleep?"

"Possibly. I'm waiting it out."

"…Pretty sure he's asleep for real, Bruce," Tim opined, sitting on the other side of the bed and considering his brother for a moment.

"Faking sleep is a special skill of his, and he's already talking about being restless. I don't want to risk him trying to get out of bed when we're not looking. You know he's still too weak for that, even if he won't admit it."

"Not 'fessing up when he needs help? Wonder where he could have learned that from."

"…Mm." _Yes, I get it, Tim, he picked up on some of my bad habits. I'm well aware of that, and more often than not I think it hurts me more than it does him. I'm sorry if it causes you pain, too, but I can't do anything about it now. In his mind, those habits are reasonable,_ he grimaced. _As reasonable as my not killing the Joker is to me. That doesn't make them right, necessarily, but…we can't do any different._

"…Bruce?"

"Yes?"

"I owe you an apology."

The billionaire turned to find his younger son pulling kicked-off covers back over the injured man's unbroken leg. "For what?"

"For what I said in the car. And…and just now. I know you hate that he's reckless sometimes, and stubborn, but…it's who he is, the same as how sometimes it's who you are. That's nobody's fault, it's just how things are. I didn't have any right to make you feel bad for that, even if he _did_ learn those things from watching you. I know you didn't mean for anything you taught him to end up getting him hurt. So...I'm sorry."

"…Tim, you've always been good at calling people out on their flaws," Bruce answered slowly. "What you said in the car was true. It wasn't pleasant for me to hear, maybe, but it was true. And you had every reason to point it out right then. I don't hold it against you."

"Really? Because you've seemed kind of pissed these last few days. I wasn't sure if it was at me, or just over Dick, or what."

"It wasn't you, it was…something else. But Dick seemed better earlier when he was awake, and that helped me feel better, too." _In so many ways,_ he kept to himself. "So I'm not mad at you, and I'm not mad at him, either. Right now I'm not mad at anyone. In fact…right now I feel pretty decent. All right?"

Tim blinked at him. "Decent?"

"Yes. Decent."

"Wow. He's so _good_ at that," he shook his head. "At making people feel decent. I don't get it. It's like he doesn't even have to try, you know?"

Bruce chuckled suddenly. "Maybe for him it's just…_unreasonable_ to not make the people he cares about happier."

"…Huh?"

"Never mind," the billionaire shook his head. "It's nothing." _He'd be much better at explaining it to you, anyway. After all, he had to explain it to me, so... _"Is dinner ready?"

"Yeah. Alfred sent me up to tell you. But if you really think he's going to try and get up…"

"No, I think it's alright now. Besides," he stood, "he knows that getting out of bed in his state would be unreasonable. I think he'll stay put for now." _Whether he does so because he really is passed out or because he's awake and heard me say that doesn't matter. What matters is that he stays where he is and heals._

"What is it with you and that word today? Unreasonable?" Tim asked, also rising. "…Damn it, Dick, quit kicking the blanket off," he added in a mutter, straightening the covers again as he passed the end of the bed.

"It's just a good thing to avoid being, Tim," he answered, clapping a hand on his shoulder briefly as they exited the room. "That's all. Just use good reason, and try not to let anyone make you second guess yourself. And if someone _does_ manage to unsettle you on that point…have a talk with your brother."

Listening right up until they shut the door behind themselves, Dick smiled, wriggled his good foot free of his quilt for a final time, and went to sleep for real.

* * *

**Author's Note: Thank you all for sticking with me all the way to the end of the story! I hope you all enjoyed the ride. I'll be posting either a new 'Spot of Tea' chapter or the beginnings of a series of Spark in the Dark one-shots called 'Summer Shorts' tomorrow, and the Gobblehead story I promised will begin posting this week as well, with updates daily. Happy reading!**


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